Uncle Sam Wants Them

Military recruiters are grabbing student info from local schools without parents' permission

A A A Comments By John Dougherty Thursday, Jun 2 2005

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Pollard states that she found transactions as large as $170,000 moving through the account. More than $900,000 cleared the account in the past five years. Any transaction over $20,000 needed approval by File's office, which was never notified.

The state's discovery of what appears to be a slush fund is not surprising. My investigation found that school administrators had rung up thousands of dollars of personal expenses on district credit cards.

John Dougherty

Activist Gary Martiniak (center) distributes pamphlets urging Camelback High School students to resist military recruiters.

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The state's also investigating a $3 million grant that the district reportedly received but never spent on school functions.

The raid came four days after File told teachers and administrators that the state intended to place the school district into receivership later this summer. File told the staff that he expected to be appointed as the receiver and that he planned to terminate many employees.

The Attorney General's Office wisely moved to protect evidence in its criminal investigation from possible destruction.

My investigation proved that Colorado City school officials engaged in illegal activities. It's great that the AG's office is cutting off the publicly funded financial pipeline to the polygamist enclave, which has used the school district to illegally siphon funds to the fundamentalist church. The leaders of that church have not only condoned but required the sexual abuse of underage girls in their community for decades.

Says one police officer involved in the raid about those responsible for the financial fraud: "I think we got them."

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